The Spirit of God
I Will Pour Out My Spirit On All People
Joel 2:28-32; Acts 2:14-21
For thirteen weeks we’ve been studying the Spirit of God and to be honest, we’ve only scratched the surface of the subject. The Spirit of God is an extremely complex person who is intimately involved in every part of the Christian experience.
I have sought primarily to focus on helping us understand how to apply His work in our lives as believers. He is most active in the life of believers encouraging us to walk in the Spirit without grieving or quenching His work.
And it is with believers in mind that I want to share today a promise regarding the Spirit that is found in the book of Joel. Writing approximately 830 BC, he predicted a day would come when God would pour out his Spirit on all people. The promise is found in
Joel 2:28
This is one of the great statements of the Bible. Here we discover how God ignites kingdom life in his people. He pours out his Spirit on them and they are never the same again. And when God promises to “pour out” the Spirit, this is more than a trickle. It means that God plans to release the floodgates of heaven into the human heart.
No man can do this on his own. I can preach for hours, but I cannot pour out God’s Spirit upon you.
This is not the result of church membership or the organized aspects of local church life.
This is God doing what only God can do. We must individually go to God for this outpouring, and He must come to us with the power of his Spirit and unless that happens, we will never be changed. And when that does happen, we will never be the same again.
I want to help you see this amazing promise of the Spirit from five different perspectives. First,
1. This is a Promise for the Last Days
Joel says the pouring out of the Spirit on all people will come to pass “afterward”. Now historically, he was indicating the blessing of God’s Spirit would come after God’s judgment on the unbelieving people of Judah.
The people to which Joel ministered were filled with pride and arrogance. They were half hearted in their commitment, not totally sold out for the Lord. Theirs was a nation that outwardly looked religious, but inwardly they were away from God, lukewarm and indifferent.
And God uses Joel to call them to awake. They are in the valley of decision and it is time repent or judgment will fall. And then he adds this promise. “Afterward”, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Eight hundred years later Peter quotes this same verse at the beginning of his sermon in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. When the Holy Spirit came upon the early disciples, they began to speak with other tongues, declaring the Lord’s greatness in languages that they did not know.
Those watching thought they were drunk, but Peter said that was impossible since it was only 9 AM — too early to be drunk! Then Peter says what they were seeing was a fulfillment of what Joel had predicted eight centuries earlier.
Acts 2:16
The King James is even plainer: “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.”
“This is that.” What Joel predicted has now started to come true. On the Day of Pentecost, God began to pour out his Spirit on all people, just as He said He would.
But notice that when Peter quotes Joel, he changes one part of the quotation. Where Joel said, “afterwards,” Peter says, “in the last days.” In the New Testament the “last days” refers to the entire period of time starting with Pentecost and ending with Second Coming of Christ to the earth.
Pentecost inaugurates the last days. It marks the start of the final chapter of human history. It doesn’t matter that the “last days” have already lasted for 2000 years. God doesn’t count time the way we do.
If someone asks, “Are we living in the Last Days?” the answer will always be yes because the last days started 2000 years ago. What Joel predicted in 830 BC, Peter says has come to fulfillment in AD 33.
That fulfillment continues in the 2000 years since then, and will not be complete until Jesus returns to the earth.
And this promise from Joel and repeated from Peter is a reminder of God’s intention for His people in the last days. There is no other way to interpret these verses. God’s purpose is to empower His people with His Spirit so they will take His gospel to the ends of the earth.
Acts 1:8 says that very plainly: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
God never pours out his Spirit simply for the purpose of entertaining us or to cause strange emotional manifestations. God pours out his Spirit so that we will be bold witnesses for Christ starting where we are and going to “the ends of the earth.”
So first and foremost, this is a promise for the last days.
2. This is a Promise for All People
Notice God says His Spirit will be poured out on “all people”. I find this particular part of the promise especially encouraging. The Lord promises to send His Spirit on all people. Pentecost means that the Spirit is no longer given only to spiritual leaders in Israel; the Spirit now indwells everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.
Let me show you a beautiful Old Testament illustration of how that works. It’s found in Numbers 11 and it happens during the days when the Israelites wandered in the wilderness.
The Jews are constantly complaining to Moses. He gets fed up and tells the Lord He’s through leading these people. It’s too much to bear and He asks the Lord to just kill him on the spot. That’s in verse 14.
Notice how God responds.
Verses 16-17
That’s exactly what He did and when the Spirit came upon those laymen, they began to preach and praise the Lord. It must have been quite a sight to behold. However, there were two of the elders who didn’t get involved.
Verse 26 tells us their names were Eldad and Medad. And even though they stayed behind, the Spirit came upon them and they began prophesying in the midst of the camp, which no doubt shook everyone up.
In fact, this young boy ran to tell Moses what was happening. Before he could say anything, Joshua told Joshua to tell these two to shut up and stop prophesying. If they didn’t come to the meeting, they shouldn’t get to be in on the action.
Maybe Joshua thought things were spinning out of control and if Moses didn’t get a handle on this situation you’d have ordinary people standing up and prophesying left and right, and you couldn’t have that.
But instead of telling the two men to stop, notice what Moses said to Joshua.
Number 11:29
Wouldn’t Moses have been tickled had he been in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost? This is exactly what Joel was predicting. That day would come when all God’s people would experience the power of the Holy Spirit. What Moses wished for, what Joel predicted, what Peter explained, you and I now live every moment of our lives.
That’s the whole point of the text. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the Holy Spirit’s power is only for religious professionals. The promise is for you. It’s not just for graduates of seminary or those who are called to preach. And you don’t have to pass an exam in Greek or Hebrew. God says, “I will pour my Spirit out on all people!”
Listen to what Pastor John Piper says regarding this promise:
“Would that all God’s people were so filled with God that our love and admiration could not but spill over into words. Would that every Wednesday night and every Sunday night we might come together so deeply moved by the Spirit that we would fall over each other to testify in prophetic words of edifying praise to what we have seen of God. What is it that hinders us? What is it in our tradition that has locked us into ourselves, and imprisoned us in solitary cells of silence? Why, why, in the name of Pentecost are we so reticent to speak of God when opportunity is given the church and beyond? I don’t know why. But this I know: it is not the Spirit; it is not the Spirit of God that seals your lips and makes you think that praise and exhortation is a private affair.
Here’s the third thing
3. This is a Promise for All Groups.
Verse 28b-29
The Holy Spirit does not discriminate. He’s no respecter of persons. For instance, He doesn’t discriminate on the basis of sex. He says, “Your sons and daughters will prophesy.”
He doesn’t discriminate on the basis of age: “Your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”
He doesn’t discriminate on the basis of social class: “even on my servants …I will pour out my Spirit.” The word “servants” translates a Hebrew word that means “slaves.”
God doesn’t pick his friends only from the better parts of town. He doesn’t associate only with people from certain neighborhoods. He’ll hang out with anyone who’ll hang out with him. He’ll be friends with anyone who wants to be friends with him. And when it comes to pouring out his Spirit, he doesn’t favor the rich or the famous. He’s perfectly willing to pour out his Spirit on the poorest of the poor.
Since I’m growing older, I couldn’t help but spend some time thinking about the statement that old men will dream dreams. I used to concentrate more on the “young men will see visions” part but actually both applications intrigue me. Why does He use these references to the old and the young?
When you are young, you naturally have visions of what the future might hold.
I can remember the excitement I felt in my late teens and early 20’s as I was just starting out for the Lord. Everything seemed possible. I had a ton of ideas, most of them impractical.
When I moved to Rubottom they had a basement filled with tires and old recliners and stuff nobody wanted. I wanted to turn it into Sunday School classrooms. We cleaned it out and framed up some rooms and hung sheetrock and painted.
One of the old deacons later told me they had put up and torn down walls in that basement three times. Why because young pastors see visions!
It is the most natural and normal thing in the world for young people to dream dreams. It would bother me if they didn’t. I completely understand why the young get turned off by all the modern church. The fact that young people get turned off by the church is a good sign that the Holy Spirit is at work. It’s a good thing when they come to church, look around, and then say, “We could do better than this.” That’s part of the vision that God gives to every new generation.
But that’s not the whole story. God also says that old men will dream dreams. They dream because their work on earth is almost done, and because they aren’t afraid to die, they are now free to dream big dreams of what God might do after they are gone.
As men and women move into their senior years they are increasingly freed of the earthly burdens they carried for so many decades. That freedom often gives birth to big dreams from the Lord.
It’s good to be around old men who dream dreams because they keep the rest of us from settling into the rut of mediocrity. In fact, I’d much rather be around old men who dream dreams than old men who do nothing but complain and be critical.
If you want to find the real action in the church today, God says then you need to explore the generational edges. Go to the young and to the old. They have visions and dreams of what God wants to do through his church. That’s where the real action is.
It’s the generation in the middle that gives us problems. And at 53, I am squarely in the middle of that troublesome Baby Boomer generation. If I am honest with myself, I remember when dreams and visions came much easier to me than they do now.
Like most people at my stage of life, I’ve got tons of concerns that I have to think about. I have obligations and responsibilities, promises to keep, bills to pay, meetings to attend, and a to-do list that never really gets done. I’m no different from anyone else in these “middle years” of life.
But the young have visions because they don’t know any better. The old dream dreams because their work is mostly done. We need the energy of the young and the faith of the old if the church is to be all God wants it to be in the 21st-century.
Here’s the fourth thing:
4. This is a Promise of Coming Judgment.
Joel 2:30-31
It’s tempting to skip these verses and think they aren’t connected or don’t apply to us. But that would be a mistake because these verses describe a series of cataclysmic events just before the Second Coming of Christ when he comes to judge the earth. In fact, these events could be in the very near future
They weren’t fulfilled in Joel’s day and they weren’t fulfilled at Pentecost and they have not been fulfilled since then. But one day they will be fulfilled and it will happen in the days just preceding the coming of Christ to the earth.
There will be wars on a scale unprecedented in human history. We think things are in a mess. We ain’t seen nothing yet! There will be blood and fire and smoke and natural upheavals and disease and death unlike the world has ever witnessed.
We have here a very graphic picture of the wrath of God that will cover the earth in judgment at the end of the last days. Nobody likes to think of God in that way. As one author put it:
“We’d like to think our Father who art in heaven has matured. We’d like to think that he’s learned to control his temper and overlook our sin. That hellfire and brimstone stuff, well, it’s just so crass.”
But it helps to remember that the Bible writers, unlike most modern men and women and a whole lot of preachers) did not shrink from using fear as a proper motivation.
True preaching always involves the negative. We cannot preach the God of love if we do not also preach the God who judges sin and punishes sinners. If we do not preach the truth of God’s judgment, we present a warped gospel to the world that cannot save the lost.
That’s why this fifth aspect of the promise is so important and that is
5. This is a Promise of Free Salvation.
Joel 2:32
This is the flip side of the previous truth. If God will judge sinners (and he will), he also invites them to be saved from their sin. This text is so crucial that it appears in the Bible three times.
Once in Joel 2:28, once in Acts 2:21 and once in Romans 10:13.
It is the heart of God to save. When there were only two sinners on the face of the earth, God did what was necessary to secure their salvation. God is always about salvation and redemption and the outpouring of the Spirit means the offer of salvation now goes to every person on earth.
And remember that everyone means everyone. “Whosoever will may come”. It includes the poor village people who live in and around Malawi, and it includes the good, hometown folks in Idaho and it includes the super rich who make the news every day. It includes the lost around Ardmore and the homeless on the streets.
The cultured and the illiterate are both offered free salvation. The prostitute and the debutante can both be saved. It includes those who are regarded as “odd” or “strange” or “eccentric” by the world. And it reaches out to take in the sick, the weak, the disabled, the discouraged, the hopeless, and even the dying. No one is excluded.
So if you want to go to heaven, you can! But you must repent of your sin and call on the name of the Lord. So how do you do that?
You respond to the work of the Holy Spirit. Right now He is at work helping you to understand you are a sinner. He is pressing on your heart the claims of Christ. He will help you to believe in the God revealed in the Bible and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is His job to convince you of Christ and lead you to believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and rose from the dead. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
And in response, you simply cry out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner, for Jesus’ sake.”
If you call upon the name of the Lord, you will be saved. This is God’s promise to you. But you must do the calling. Do not wait or hesitate or put it off. Make sure that you are going to heaven.
It’s always easy to find reasons why God won’t do something. But as I pointed out earlier, the young and old have something to teach us about that. God is more willing to pour out his Spirit than we are to receive his outpouring. The problem is never with God. It’s always with us.
God has more he wants to do in our midst. There are new adventures in store for us if we will “catch the wave” of the Spirit.
But someone may say, “In the last days, hard times will come.” Yes, that is true. Hey listen: In many ways, hard times are already here. But God also declares, “In the last days, I will pour out my Spirit.” We should not be surprised that the last days will be days of trouble and blessing mixed together. So it has always been for God’s people. So it will be till Jesus comes again.
The terrorists may strike again — and they probably will.
But God says, “I will pour out my Spirit in the last days.”
The love of many will grow cold. But God says, “I will pour out my Spirit in the last days.”
Christians will be persecuted in many places. But God says, “I will pour out my Spirit in the last days.”
And when God’s Spirit is poured out, the result will be a church filled with passion, zeal and power. I want to be part of that. I don’t want to be left on the sidelines watching the action on the field. In the midst of trouble, destruction, terrorism, natural disasters, false religion and moral decline, God still says, “I will pour out my Spirit in the last days.”
This is my final sermon on the Holy Spirit. In the first message, I said that Holy Spirit comes like the wind–you cannot control him and you cannot predict where the wind of the Spirit will blow next.
My heart cries out, “Wind of God, blow through me today. Let your gentle breeze blow out my doubt, my fear, my worry, my hesitation, and all my excuses. O Wind of God, blow through my heart and cleanse every part.”
I want to be part of what God is doing around the world. I believe He is raising up an end-times army of believers who are Spirit-filled, bold, bright, risk-taking, exuberant disciples of Jesus Christ. They are on the front lines of what God is doing around the world.
And so I say, “Lord, while on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Holy Spirit, while you are traveling through Ardmore, please stop for a while at 320 North Washington. Let your wind blow through our midst. Sweep out the old and everything that holds us back, and free us to serve You with great joy.”
We have not yet arrived and God is not done with us yet. May God pour out his Spirit in our midst, and I gladly say, “O Lord, begin with me.”
Let’s pray.
